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Packaging for Perth coffee roasters Darkstar Coffee.

Published:

Darkstar Coffee

Illustrations, packaging designs and web elements for local coffee roasters Darkstar Coffee in consultation with talented Perth designer Ridhwaan Moolla. The brief called for four packages, each with a unique sci-fi character design. Three of the packages were used for Darkstar's regular coffee blends and a fourth for their regularly updated single origin. Their website required an animated landing page and assortment of other "space-y" elements throughout.

Photos by Ridhwaan Moola.

Behind The Scenes

Darkstar was a lot of fun to draw because I absolutely love science fiction and I was given the opportunity to be creative and pitch concepts that were out of the ordinary. I wanted to present something that was fun and visually appealing to customers, but also give it an edge in terms of the character design and the colour choices. It was also a great opportunity to work with Ridhwaan who provided much valued insight and art direction in the project and designed the website layout.

With a project such as this where characters play an important role, I find it best to sketch them in different ways before jumping into layouts (see below). This allows me to define the personality of each character without restriction and better understand the main elements that need to be represented in the final applications.

Layout

Once I had a general sense of the characters, I moved on to creating rough concepts of the packages, demonstrating the environments and positioning of the text elements. In this instance while the theme of each is the same, the composition of the illustrations changed quite a bit in the final versions, giving a greater sense of unity and consistency (see above).

Colour

Working in Adobe Illustrator allows me to change and refine the colour scheme in a snap. I like to present a few different options because colour can impact how a design is perceived. It might also give the work a different angle or added depth. For Darkstar I presented three main colour combinations (also above) and I'm very happy with the final choice!